Novartis Group: Healthcare Sector Is a Gateway for Investment

Novartis Group Turkey Chairman Altan Demirdere: "Healthcare sector spending returns to GDP at almost the same rate. This demonstrates that healthcare expenditure and the healthcare sector are self-sustaining sectors within the economy." Novartis Group Turkey Chairman Demirdere stated, "The healthcare sector is not merely an expenditure gate, but an investment gate with environmental, social, and economic contributions to GDP. All spending in the healthcare sector returns to GDP at almost the same rate. This demonstrates that healthcare expenditure and the healthcare sector are self-sustaining sectors within the economy."

Investment gate, not an expenditure gate

In his assessments regarding the healthcare sector's economic contributions, Demirdere explained that they had conducted studies using Health Economics Reporting (HER) prepared by the German Wifor Institute for 190 countries including Turkey, as well as Social, Environmental and Economic (SEE) Impact Assessment. Noting that the healthcare sector has so far been viewed as an "expenditure gate" despite providing health to people, Demirdere said, "However, these new analyses show that the healthcare sector is no longer merely an expenditure gate, but an investment gate with environmental, social, and economic contributions to GDP. All spending in the healthcare sector returns to GDP at almost the same rate. This demonstrates that healthcare expenditure and the healthcare sector are self-sustaining sectors within the economy."

Healthcare spending contributes to the economy

Demirdere noted that healthcare spending creates economic growth, prosperity and improvement at every level of the value chain extending from hospitals to the pharmaceutical industry, and said that the healthcare sector has added value and employment percentages almost equal to construction and tourism. Demirdere stated, "The pharmaceutical sector is as important as construction and tourism from both health and economic perspectives. Health economics is a field that provides added value to the economy through its indirect and triggered values." Altan Demirdere said, "Let us increase our healthcare spending through intelligent drug and device use. Let us not fear increasing these figures, because the amount we increase returns to GDP as added value at the same rate." "Evaluation should be individual for each company" Requesting that the government evaluate decisions taken with pharmaceutical companies in the healthcare sector individually for each firm, Demirdere noted the following: "When calculating added value, we as Novartis also calculated our company's share in the same added values. We found that our company's contribution to added values corresponds to a very significant rate. If all companies do this, and if our government evaluates all companies based on the added value they bring to the country, then I believe it will encourage more investment and companies will work to further increase this added value. This is my expectation."

ANKARA (AA) - ZEYNEP CANLI